Ever wondered how the human brain works (or doesn't work, as the case may be!) Here's a great FREE guide!

I came across this great resource from National Geographic. It is a free introduction to the workings of the most complex of human organs, the brain.

Of course, while this will tell you all about neurons, dendrites, and neural connections, it cannot account for the jump from biological, electrical and chemical functioning, to the mystery of human consciousness! That is something that requires a little more research, thought, AND will be the topic of a new book I have coming out towards the end of 2008 that is based upon my doctoral research! So, watch this space!

Here's the resource (found here):

National Geographic has a quick and helpful interactive introduction to the human brain, explaining in simple terms the brain's anatomy, some common diseases, and also which parts of the brain are lit up by smells, light, sound, romance, and other stimuli. From the site:

The brain's nerve cells are known as neurons, which make up the organ's so-called "gray matter." The neurons transmit and gather electrochemical signals that are communicated via a network of millions of nerve fibers called dendrites and axons. These are the brain's "white matter."

The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, accounting for 85 percent of the organ's weight. The distinctive, deeply wrinkled outer surface is the cerebral cortex, which consists of gray matter. Beneath this lies the white matter. It's the cerebrum that makes the human brain—and therefore humans—so formidable. Whereas animals such as elephants, dolphins, and whales have larger brains, humans have the most developed cerebrum. It's packed to capacity inside our skulls, enveloping the rest of the brain, with the deep folds cleverly maximizing the cortex area.

The cerebrum has two halves, or hemispheres. It is further divided into four regions, or lobes, in each hemisphere. The frontal lobes, located behind the forehead, are involved with speech, thought, learning, emotion, and movement. Behind them are the parietal lobes, which process sensory information such as touch, temperature, and pain. At the rear of the brain are the occipital lobes, dealing with vision. Lastly, there are the temporal lobes, near the temples, which are involved with hearing and memory.

Link

Anyone for a holiday in Mozambique... Sometimes we forget that we live in Africa!

Today Megan and I are celebrating 14 years of marriage. I am thankful to God (and Megan!) for the blessing of these years.

Those who know my wife will testify to just how remarkable and special she is! Megan is a loving wife, a loving and caring companion in ministry. she is beautiful, kind, and far more 'Christian' that I will ever be. Moreover, she is a respected business woman, having been the primary breadwinner in our family since we married.

I could not wish for any better! I love her and cherish our life together!

So, I have been thinking about what I could do for her that will let her know how special she is, and how much I appreciate and adore her.

A friend suggested a romantic holiday in an exotic location... We have just such a place on our doorstep. It is called Mozambique... However, I received the following warning (click on the image to enlarge it)....

Perhaps if I love her this much we should just stay home! It is safer, and the lights are bound to go out at some stage (no thanks to ESKOM!)

Got google earth!? Check out a few events from the Bible!

This is a great post! It's amazing what people with a lot of time on their hands can do!

In "God's Eye View," Sydney-based art collective The Glue Society portrays four major Biblical events as if captured by Google Earth: "Cross, Moses, Ark, Eden."

Creative Review blog says the group "is aiming to produce further works using the same satellite imagery next year but this time relating to mythological occurrences and major historical events." Link.

Above: Moses parting the Red Sea. (thanks, Clayton James Cubitt!)
From here.

So, what is the perfect blogging tool?!

I have been blogging for a few years now. Most of that time has been spent on two blogging platforms. For the first quarter (or so) of my blogging life I used a Mac application called iBlog. It worked quite well... But, the downside was that it was an 'offline' tool. In other words, it only worked on my Mac. So, if I wasn't near that exact computer I couldn't post. The rest of my time has been spent mostly on blogger. Blogger is great for posting from all over the place (you may have noticed that I do a lot of posts from my car! Whenever I am stuck in traffic the neurons start firing and out comes my iPhone!) The downside, however, is that blogger is not all that flexible. It has clearly been written for the 'lowest common denominator'. In particular I have found that as my needs (and the traffic to my site) have grown blogger simply can't keep up (like for example having to stop using the very useful 'tags' feature because it simply would not work when I published to my own URL).

Recently I have been dabbling with Wordpress. It is a lot more flexible, and certainly seems to suit the hardcore blogger a little more.

However, there are two reasons why I have not moved across to Wordpress. First, I have almost 600 posts in blogger... I would have to move each of those 600 posts manually... Not likely. Second, Wordpress does not post to a 'private' URL as easily as blogger does... So, I have not made the move.

I would love to hear what others are using, why they use their particular platform, and if there are any suggestions...

Meanwhile, here's a post from Cory Doctrow on bloggin standards:

"Metafilter" Matt Haughey just finished migrating one of his blogs to a new back-end, and the experience has left him with a lot of smart thinking about what the perfect blogging tool should be like:

There really should be a standard of some sort that blog CMS companies can agree on for export and import. Users of blog engines shouldn’t be hostages to their applications. Data exit and entry is problematic in everything I’ve used and it’s a shame. Blogging is supposed to be fun and I prefer to be agnostic about what tools I’m using, so it’d be nice if I could change blog engines every three months without too much friction. I won’t even go into how every engine has its own URL scheme — it’d be nice if I could keep my permalinks forever, even as I change blogging apps.

Link

The necessity of friends...

Stephen Murray is a deep thinker - I have appreciated the insights gained from many of his posts. Today he posted twice on the same topic - the Gospel (the Church) and the attitude of love. One of the tensions that he raises is the struggle between love and truth... He touches on a point that I have often felt.

When someone is in error, and particularly when your approach to that person is framed in love, it is not easy to correct or rebuke their wrong idea or behavior. In fact, such a rebuke could feel a little like an 'un-loving' thing to do.

His posts made me think about the relationship between Christians and the rest of the world. There is a sense in which God calls us to engage with God's world, both with those who acknowledge and love God, and also those who don't, for the sake of cultivating the hope that Christ brings into life. The courage to do this comes from true love. Just like God's courage to reach into our sinful and broken existence is motivated by God's love.

We are called to "speak the truth in love", to use a phrase from the apostle Paul. Sometimes that may mean a few words of comfort, encouragement, or sharing a vision of hope. At other times it may mean that one speaks words of challenge or rebuke.

The end of both of these 'interventions' is the same - a discovery of the kind of loving truth that brings freedom and life; the kind of freedom and life that God longs for all persons to have.

I have commented more than once on this blog that I so appreciate the friends who encourage, bless, and uplift me. I also appreciate the friends who love me enough to share a few hard words of caution, correction, or rebuke, when others are too afraid to speak.

One of the great weaknesses of success, I have come to learn, is that it makes others afraid to be honest! This is particularly so when there is a perceived imbalance of power (i.e., the relationship between a student and a teacher, or a pastor and a church member).

Martin Luther King Jnr. once commented:

In th end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

This statement rings true for me. I much prefer loving honesty to cowardly deceit! Of course, like all people, I appreciate truthful affirmation and encouraging care. However, I also value honest and truthful friends. I know that sometimes their honesty comes at a greater cost to themselves than it does to me.

Just a few thoughts...

I am feeling a little down today.

I have thought a lot about my life since my father's death four weeks ago. I realise that growth is coupled with intention. Hence, the need to 'process' some of these issues. I acknowledge that I have some more growing to do.

A picture of my desktop at home...

My good friend Gus (see http://www.gruntle.co.za) posted a picture of his desk at home.

Wessel, Murray, and I, all just think that it is a ploy to show off his new Macbook! It is a nice Macbook!

Well, I may not have a new Macbook, but I do have an old Macbook Pro (about a year and a bit old) and an Apple Cinema display (about three years old - it is normally hooked up to my OLD Quicksilver G4 Powermac) here at home!

So, here's a picture of my desk at home! This is where I do a fair amount of my writing, editing, and blogging. It is handy to have two displays (particularly when editing) since I can put the source text with comments on one monitor, and edit to original text on the other!

Ah, I am so in love with my Macs!

PS. You'll notice that I am installing a new(ish) version of Ubuntu on my Macbook eduBuntu... Ubuntu is an incredible free operating system. I would highly recommen it to all PC users as a grat alternative to Windows!

PPS. The picture quality in this photo is not too good. Sorry for that! I took the picture with my old Palm Treo 750... I have just recently installed the Windows Mobile 6 update from palm, and it has made the device usable at last! The old Windows Mobile 5 firmware was a disaster! However, there is no firmware update that can fix a poor quality camera.

Parentings do's and DONT's! A picture primer

I remember when Megan and I brought our daughter home from the hospital 8 years ago. We were very unsure of ourselves, and acutely felt the pressure of having to care for this little bundle of joy that had an uncontrollable capacity at the one end and an unmanageable irresponsibility at the other... It was a frightening couple of weeks! Well, we did what we could. We relied on the advice of others, we read LOTS of baby books, and somehow little Courtney survived to become to lovely young girl she is today.

Well, faint not new parents! Now there is a wonderfully simple pictorial guide to what NOT to do with your infant!

For example - here's a hint on babies and exercise. These tips for baby exercise will not only keep your baby healthy, but probably also alive!

And, then there's this hint on shopping with your baby. Yes, sometimes one may be tempted to put one's baby in the bottom of the shopping cart... However, avoid that temptation at ALL costs!

What guide would be complete without some advice about hygiene? I'm not too sure that this one is crucial. I have a few male relatives who have used a garden hose to wash off a 'poo nappy'... Nothing wrong with that! ;-)

From here.

Technorati tags: parenting tips, new parents, how to bath a baby, tips for baby exercise, shopping with your baby

At the end of the day - discerning a developing call

One of the blogs that I enjoy reading quite regularly is the thoughtful (and well focussed) blog of Gareth Beyers.

Today I was struck by the title of Gareth's blog - it is called The state of Gareth - it has an edit that makes the final text read The stage of Gareth... Now I'm not sure if it means 'the place where he represents himself', or if it means 'a stage in his development'... From what I read on his blog it seems like the latter of the two. It is a great blog with some exceptional content. I would highly recommend it!

What struck me as I popped onto his site today was the notion of 'stages' in one's life (see Gareth's Bio for a very good example of what I mean). I shall soon be embarking on a new phase of my own journey.

One of the things that I do within the Methodist Church of Southern Africa is travel the country between February and the end of March each year 'interviewing' persons who are 'candidates' for our Ordained ministry. The screening process is intended to be an act of discernment. The committee that gathers to hear the person who wishes to become a minister is not an interviewing committee. After all, this is not a job! Rather, this committee is entrusted with listening, praying, and discerning, whether God has called the particular person to the full time, ordained, ministry of either word and sacrament or word and service.

I have been doing this task for about 11 years now. In truth there is something of a common thread that runs through all of the testimonies and lives of those that I have screened who have successfully entered our ministry. Of course the one common strand is a real love for Jesus and for the people and world that Jesus loves. That should be a given for a Christian ministers... But, there are some other things we listen for. We listen for moments of God's divine call that are echoed in the story and growth of the persons life. If the truth be told, the call to be a minister is quite a simple thing! Simply stated it is a call to devote the whole of one's life, all of one's desires, and of course all of one's talent, time, and testimony, to doing what it is that God wants done...

It is always interesting for me to meet persons that I have 'screened' in later years and hear and see how their call has developed. I screened just about all of the 30 students who arrived at John Wesley College a week ago... Very few of them are the same as those timid and frightened candidates we saw three years ago! They seem more confident, with a deeper faith, and of course with a far greater understanding of the complexity and demands of pastoral ministry (since most of them have had at least 1 year of ministry in a cross cultural setting). It is not that they 'responded to the call' of God. Rather, they are constantly 'responding' to the call (it is a present indicative response, not a passive past tense).

Ministry is a responsive choice... I personally believe that every person is called by God (even people who do not yet know Jesus have been created by God with the potential for discovering their calling in life). The choice is a choice for obedience. It is a choice to subjugate one's own will and selfish desires and ambitions for the much greater will of God. For some that will mean doing the thing that they are already doing (e.g., being a parent, or perhaps a teacher, or maybe an office worker, an accountant, or God forbid, a lawyer). However, for others it will mean a shift from what they are doing to doing something else.

You see, at the end of the day, the things that ministers DO (pray for people, help them to discover and rediscover God, disciple and grow people, deepen their faith, support people in hardship, inspire people to live for greater significance and meaning, rebuke, correct, and a myriad of other tasks) can all be done by any person in any environment.

In fact, I have become more and more aware of how calling is so much more about intention than it is about the actions that are traditionally associated with 'ministry'. Even among those faithful and dedicated souls who remain in active pastoral ministry there is a constant need to maintain a right intention. I have often seen that the desire to maintain a right intention has in fact caused a person to change the actions that they had previously associated with their ministry. For example, the local Church minister who discovers that in order to maintain the intention to bring God's healing with integrity he will have to move from being a 'general practitioner' who preaches, leads, manages, and teaches, to becoming something of a specialist who focuses far more acutely on counseling.

This does not mean that the person is no longer called to ministry - you see the intention (which is the core of true ministry) has remained, while the actions associated with that intention have shifted to keep the intention pure and focussed.

Another interesting factor for me is that one's actions go through stages as one seeks to maintain a pure intention. I have been through a number of clear and definite stages in my 16 years of ministry. I have been a student, an associate, a senior pastor, a superintendent, a teacher, a leader. Of course I have been all of these things at some stages, and some of them at others...

The long and the short of it is that the calling remains even if the actions may change.

Thanks Gareth. You've made me think.

Together with you in Christ,

Dion

Science and mathematics CAN explain most things... Don't believe me? Check this out!

In this age of empiricism and the value of quantifiable knowledge, mathematicians have just made a further significant breakthrough.... Yes, the world's brightest mathematical scholars have owned (well, if one truly wishes to use net l33t speak - pwned) RAP music.

Check out these graphs and charts that explain the logic behind the lyrics of many popular rap songs!

Here's an example of the relationship between problems and money...

There are a whole lot of truly exceptional (and funny!) charts and graphs to be seen here.

Yes... Or maybe, no... Well, you make up your mind!

This has to be one of the more bizarre phenomena of contemporary culture. I guess it is something of a mix between Mahatma Ghandi's satya graha (non violent resistance), and a weird fetishist gathering!

What exactly they will achieve is not clear, but they will attract some attention, that's for sure!

So, if you're in the London area on the 10th of February and want to 'out' the Church of scientology... Don your mask and head on down.

Now, what I think I would like to do is wait in the nearest tube station 30 minutes before this event is about to start with my camera in hand! That would be incredible!!!

PS. As far as I'm aware the reference to 'fags' has nothing to do with one's sexual orientation - rather it is an obscure reference to the movie 'V for Vendetta'.

Update 2 February 2008: Hey guys,

Thanks for the posts in the comments Steve and Steve! You know, I should simply have googled this in the first place.... The Etymology of the word 'fag' comes from the word 'faggot' which refers to a bundle of sticks that are bound together (to give strength, or to be used for decoration, or protection) - hence the reference to fags joining together to picket the Church of Scientology...

Of course, that could also be why a packet of cigarettes are called 'fags' since they are packed together so tightly....

Technorati tags: fags, faggot, the meaning of faggot, scientology, V for Vendetta

From the secret to the bizarre! The Secret Museum of Mankind website, the "World's Greatest Collection of Strange & Secret Photographs"

from my favourite source of the bizarre! boingboing.net

Ian Macky says: "Published in 1935, the Secret Museum is a mystery book. It has no author or credits, no copyright, no date, no page numbers, no index. Published by 'Manhattan House' and sold by 'Metro Publications,' both of New York, its 'Five Volumes in One' was pure hype: it had never been released in any other form."

Three million cheers to Macky for not only scanning all 564 pages of this treasure of a book, but for cleaning up the images, transcribing the text, and adding thumbnail galleries and a copy of a 1942 magazine ad.

Cannibals. Fakirs. Equilibrists. Crime and punishment. Rituals. Slaves, cults and customs. Warriors and weapons. Musicians and mendicants. Dance, dress, undress and body modification. Structures, conveyances, beasts, and more breasts than you can shake a stick at! This is The Secret Museum of Mankind.

Advertised as "World's Greatest Collection of Strange & Secret Photographs" and marketed mainly to overheated adolescents (see the 1942 ad in Keen, left), it consists of nothing but photos and captions with no further exposition. This was not a book published to educate (despite appearing on some public library's shelves), but to titillate (literally)-- it's emphasis was on the female form ("Female Beauty Round the World") and fashion, and it featured as many National-Geographic-style native breasts as possible. But anything lurid, weird, or just plain unusual is fair game. This was a book to gawk at by flashlight under the bedcovers.

Link

10 Stephen Hawking quotes - stand aside Chuck Norris, you're no match!

From time to time I get the feeling that some people think I am a Geek... After all, I like computers, I love complex equations, I have a doctorate in Strong Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience...

BUT, then I am reminded that my _geekiness_ is nothing compared to some of the world's UBER Geeks!

Stand aside Church Norris, I have just reassigned your spot to a new superhero... Stephen Hawking! Not only is he a genius, he's also got a great sense of humour!

taken from here.

I have recently been reading up a bit on the life and work of British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. In my reading, I have run across a number of his famous quotes that are both funny and insightful. He is widely considered to be among the most intelligent people living today. Here is what he has to say...

10. "Einstein was wrong when he said "God does not play dice". Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen."

9. "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."

8. "My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

7. "I find that American & Scandinavian accents work better with women." In response to a question about the American accent of his synthesiser.

6. "Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers."

5. "My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

4. "To show this diagram properly, I would really need a four dimensional screen. However, because of government cuts, we could manage to provide only a two dimensional screen."

3. "Life would be tragic if it weren't funny."

2. "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired."

1. "Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."